U.S. Bank’s Wonderful Gift to UNM
U.S. Bank has just given the University of New Mexico $1.7 Million to buy luxury seating areas in the University’s sports complexes, so one percenters can sit on their fat butts, suck down their beer, and root for the Lobos. The “donation,” “bribe,” “payoff,” or whatever you call it is the brainchild of UNM athletic mastermind Craul Pebs.
“Screw education,” said Pebs, “We got dough, and that’s what counts!”...
Reed’s Rules & the Drive to Create Colonies
I was listening to our vice president mouthing off to the Russians about not permitting one country to simply take over another, and all I can think is, what hypocrisy! The United States is the champion of starting wars, then collecting the spoils.
As I watched the VP, I flashed back to when we precipitated the Spanish-American War. The United States has not altered its face, the one it shows to the world, since the turn of the 20th Century. The thinking that precipitated the Spanish-American War, undeniably, was in evidence some years before...
Rebuilding Economies on the Border
“Mexico is the draw and we’re along the way,” says Mayor Philip Skinner of the tiny village of Columbus, noting how the violence across the border in Palomas, Mexico and further south had cut into the number of visitors who passed through Columbus, thus hurting the local economy. He was speaking at a recent and historic meeting of local political leaders from both sides of the border, stretching from Silver City in the north to Casas Grandes to the south. The meeting took place in Columbus and he was the organizer and this driving force in this bi-national effort...
Why Disenfranchise Teen Voters
When more than 100,000 youths 16 and 17 years old cast votes Sept. 18 in the most important election in Scotland in 300 years, they also cast a ballot in the United States and dozens of other countries around the world that have been debating youth voting.
In the Scottish election, advocates of independence lost, but youths on both sides of the heated referendum won. Polling showed that the newly registered voters were as well informed as their older peers, were as serious about the issues and by and large put reasoned calculations of economic benefit ahead of emotional appeals to Scottish nationalism. There was no indication that the young were more subject to manipulation or were more naive than older voters. As a result, all of Britain is on the verge of enfranchising teenagers...
Fool’s Gold: Spin Cycle
It’s been a rough autumn in the news. From ISIS to reports that Tony Bennett is still alive, I for one am as depressed as ever. Other people are always saying, “Newspapers should run more positive stories, like about that nice young boy who picks up roadside garbage for free.” But other people don’t realize that no one—not even that parolee doing his time collecting trash—commits truly selfless deeds worthy of print.
No one, that is, except for me. For just as Rumpelstiltskin spun whole roomfulls of worthless straw into precious gold before it broke the camel’s back, so I want to puree leftover news into easy-to-swallow gold before anyone else chokes on it...
New Mexico, Where Scotusocracy Rules
I love our new Scotusocracy here in beloved New Mexico, though it looks an awful lot like the political system in some other countries, if you ask me.
Bigtime experts say, democracy works thisaway: Two candidates with different views put their cases to the voters to decide which candidate seems best qualified. The voter is the decider, and this causes citizens to have lots of problems trying to choose which of the two to vote for. There are debates and two campaigns, and stuff like that, and it’s all just so very confusing and demanding. Thank God now we have a better way thanks to the Soopreme Court...
Five Questions for New Mexico Authors – Cipriano Frederico Vigil
This week we ask Cipriano Frederico Vigil of Chamisal, New Mexico—a renowned musician, historian, composer, and musicologist of traditional Nuevomexicano folk music—some questions about his sure-to-be-classic bilingual book New Mexico Folk Music / Cancionero del Folklor Nuevomexicano: Treasures of a People / El Tesoro del Pueblo.
New Mexico Mercury: For someone like me with no tradition of community music, your book is a revelation. These first questions feel naïve, but they are sincere ones. What are the historical and cultural roots of Hispanic folk music in New Mexico? Is there a known beginning?...
Augustin Plains Ranch water case crucial to protecting New Mexico’s rural water
On September 22, we asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to order the State Engineer to dismiss a massive speculative water appropriation application from Augustin Plains Ranch, LLC. We live next door to the Ranch, which has spent almost eight years trying to appropriate a massive amount of water in Catron County. This attempted appropriation threatens the towns, ranches and homes of the entire San Augustin Plains region, all of which are wholly dependent on wells and groundwater.
Bruce Frederick of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) filed a petition on our behalf for a writ of mandamus. In the petition, we ask the Court to compel the State Engineer to “promptly” reject the Ranch’s most recent application for 54,000 acre-feet of water per year...
Revelations about New Mexico Poverty
Hey, guess what-- New Mexicans are poor! Isn’t that astounding? I am gobsmacked. The 20.8 percent poverty increase between 2012-13 here has absolutely nothing to do with our governor. You see, poverty is very very complex, and our governor is very very simple. Remember that please.
One issue that keeps us back is small business finance. There’s only one place to get a business loan in New Mexico, and that’s Payday Loanster. Payday Loanster is owned by some good Arizona friends of the governor. The nice folks there at the local Loanster office will help you learn what signing in blood is all about...
Assaulting Women
“He tried to fork me to death,” the trembling woman said as we stood in her living room in Adams County, Colorado. I was the Public Defender appointed to represent her husband in this wife beating case. My wife, Julie came with me to help with this interview.
Julie and I were puzzled as to what “fork me to death” meant until this woman rolled up her sleeve and showed us a series of tiny marks – four black and blue dots – where her husband had repeatedly jabbed her with a fork. Then she took Julie into her bedroom, removed her clothing and showed Julie that her whole body was completely covered with these marks. The husband had jabbed her hard enough to cause pain and leave the black and blue marks but not enough to break her skin...